Read Chapter 25: The Enemy Emerges

The knock came at nine, sharp enough to crack the quiet of Julien’s apartment. He’d been staring at his phone, waiting for Odile’s call, the screen black and useless.

He opened the door.

Captain Delacroix stood in the hallway, rain beading on the shoulders of his overcoat. His face was the same as it had been in the old days—thin, tired, watchful—but his eyes had a new quality. A kind of dead certainty.

“We need to talk,” Delacroix said.

Julien didn’t move. “We haven’t talked in seven years.”

“You’ve been busy. Mind if I come in?”

Against every instinct, Julien stepped aside. Delacroix walked past him into the small living room, his gaze flicking over the stacked files, the empty glasses, the photograph of Victoire that had somehow found its way back onto the shelf. He didn’t sit. He stood by the window and looked down at the street—at the media van still parked two blocks down, its antenna a thin accusing finger.

“You’ve made a mess, Julien.”

“The well wasn’t my mess. It was Auguste’s.”

Delacroix turned. “The well isn’t what I’m talking about.”

Julien stayed in the doorway. “Then talk.”

There was a long pause. Delacroix reached into his coat and pulled out a folded document. He held it out. Julien didn’t take it.

“That’s the original loan agreement between the Belliveau estate and the Swiss bank,” Delacroix said. “Not the forgery Venatrix cooked up. The real one. It’s worth eight hundred thousand, not ten million.”

“I already knew the number was inflated.”

“No. Look at the signatures.” Delacroix dropped the paper onto the table. Julien finally looked. The ink was sharp, the date clear. And the signature on the borrower’s line—the family’s representative—was unmistakable.

Captain Philippe Delacroix.

The air left the room.

“You,” Julien said. The word came out low and flat.

“Me. I was the financial officer. The fictitious Lucien Parmentier was a name I invented. The accounts, the shell companies, the debt restructuring letters—all mine.” Delacroix’s voice was even, almost bored. “Delage provided the capital. I provided the access. I knew the family’s accounting system inside out because I’d built a profile of them years ago, when I was still on the force. When I was still watching you.” He paused. “When I was still watching everything you did.”

Julien’s hands were fists at his sides. “You were my partner.”

“I was your shadow. There’s a difference.”

“Why?”

Delacroix laughed—a short, sharp sound. “Because you couldn't leave it alone. That’s why. The Belliveau case—the wine fraud you were sniffing around before you got thrown off the force. You were getting too close. Not to the truth, you didn’t even know what you were looking at. But you were getting close to me.” He stepped toward the center of the room. “I’ve been feeding information to Delage for a decade. The consortium needs premium estates. The Belliveau name. The vintage lines. The whole historical brand. And you—you beautiful, obsessive fool—you kept digging. So Delage decided to use you.”

“Use me for what?”

“To bury it.” Delacroix’s eyes were flat. “The debt was never about seizing the estate outright. It was leverage. A noose. We tightened it to the point of desperation, and then we waited for you to walk in, like we knew you would, and offer the family a way out. All you had to do was suppress the 1903 evidence. Keep the murder quiet. Save the Belliveau name from scandal. In exchange, the debt disappears. Delage gets his estate, clean and untainted by history. You get to walk away with your conscience intact enough to sleep at night.”

Julien felt the words land one after another, each heavier. “You set me up.”

“We set the stage. You built the play.” Delacroix’s mouth curled. “The family has already reached out to you, haven’t they? Asked you to help them hide the truth? Odile Belliveau sits in her château, terrified that the world will learn her grandfather was a murderer. And you, the great white knight, you’ve decided the lie is too much. So you’ll fight Delage instead. You’ll expose him. And in doing so, you’ll expose the Belliveau debt as fabricated—but that also exposes their desperation. It exposes Odile’s willingness to bury a dead man’s sins.”

Julien’s jaw tightened. “She didn’t know about the murder.”

“Doesn’t matter. The media will say she did. And that’s the trap, Julien. The debt is the stick. The murder is the carrot. And you’re the donkey in the middle.” Delacroix sat down on the arm of the sofa, casual, almost friendly. “If you expose the debt, you expose the family’s cover-up attempt. If you expose the murder, you hand Delage the estate on a platter of scandal—he’ll get it for nothing. And if you do nothing, the estate is seized in thirty-six hours and the family loses everything anyway.”

Julien was silent for a long moment. The rain drummed against the window. In the distance, a siren wailed and faded.

“There’s one option you didn’t mention,” Julien said.

“Oh?”

“I kill the messenger.”

Delacroix’s expression didn’t change. “You were never a killer, Julien. That’s why you were so easy to frame for Marie-Cécile’s death.”

The name hit like a slap. “That was you.”

“That was Delage. But I provided the evidence.” Delacroix spread his hands. “A misplaced file here, a coerced witness there. You were so busy chasing the wine trail that you didn’t see the knife going in your back. You lost your badge, your reputation, your wife. But you kept the wine thing alive. That’s what I admire about you. Even broken, you never stopped sniffing the cork.”

Julien moved.

He crossed the room in three strides and grabbed Delacroix by the lapels, slammed him against the wall. The old captain’s head snapped back, but he didn’t resist. He just smiled, blood beading at his lip.

“Go ahead,” Delacroix whispered. “Show me what seven years of hatred feels like.”

Julien’s hands shook. His breath came harsh. He could smell Delacroix’s cologne—cheap, familiar, the same brand he’d worn when they’d shared a squad car.

Then he saw the phone in Delacroix’s hand, screen up, recording.

“New evidence,” Delacroix said, “of the disgraced detective assaulting a police officer. Try that and you’ll be in a holding cell by midnight.”

Julien let go. Stepped back. His chest heaved.

Delacroix straightened his coat, wiped his lip. “You’re a loose end, Julien. Delage wants you gone. I wanted to give you the chance to take the deal. Suppress the confession letters. Walk away. The family will despise you, but they’ll survive. You’ll have your poisoned wine collection and your cold apartment and your ghost stories. And no one else has to die.”

“Sophie Lambert,” Julien said. “André Chenier. The two men who consulted me about the vintage records last month. They’re dead. Was that your message?”

Delacroix’s face flickered—the first crack in the calm. “They were accidents.”

“Men in fragile states. One car crash, one fall in his cellar. Convenient accidents. Delage’s people, or yours?”

Delacroix didn’t answer. He walked to the door and paused. “Thirty-six hours, Julien. The debt deadline is real. If the estate is seized, this conversation becomes academic. And you’ll have to live with the fact that you could have saved Odile and her daughters from losing everything, and you chose their dead ancestor’s truth instead.”

He opened the door.

“The truth,” he said, without turning, “is just a cost. Decide which one you want to pay.”

The door clicked shut.

Julien stood alone in the room. The recording was still playing on the screen of his phone—he’d been capturing the whole conversation from his breast pocket since the moment Delacroix walked in.

He pulled it out. Pressed stop.

“Good enough,” he whispered.

Then he dialed Commissioner Bréard.